All Together, One After Another
by Nyohah
Summary: Five different characters, five different settings, one basic situation. La ronde flash fiction. Complete.
1. Darla: Beginning of the World

**All Together, One After Another**  
by Nyohah

1  
**Beginning of the World**

"It is a curious subject of inquiry whether hatred  
and love be not the same thing at bottom."

* * *

Sometimes I despise everything about this.

On the surface, it's a different story, a pleasant story of death and blood and gluttony, but here, below, in the dripping and the stench and not the slightest hope of a view... Sometimes I want out.

The Order of Aurelius is something. It's a big something in the demon world, probably the only vampire cult to garner any respect from the pure demons. I was never part of anything big before my death. Given my position, it was obvious that I was not well thought of, but I wasn't even anything for a boy to be impressed by. Curse of location.

Paris. Now, I could have been someone in Paris. I could have been special. Men would have paid me in jewels. I know.

But I was taken to Virginia. Being dragged into that lack of civilization is a repulsive thought even now, more than a century later. Imagine me there before it even tried to be civilization. Now imagine that I got there just in time to contract syphilis and die.

I hate the New World.

The Master brought me to true civilization. He gave me a taste of riches and glory, and then he dragged me into a stinking hole to serve him and his darling Order.

It's big, full of grand plans and immense cruelty. I should feel special to be involved and to be so favored by our Master.

I feel sticky. There's a stain on the upper sleeve of my dress from the ceiling dripping on it. The ceilings don't usually drip on the surface—and, mind you, I said usually. I've been sent to places that are worse even than the lair, but that's for business. And business can be fun because business can be bloody, but there's more to do up there than business. I have to steal away to go above for my pleasure. Pleasure takes me wherever I wish, and I wish nothing but the best. People drunk on rich wine taste so much better than people drunk on cheap beer.

The Master wishes nothing but the best from his servants. Nothing but dauntless devotion to the cause.

But what use is a cause? Girls aren't built for a cause. I wasn't built to be a servant. Girls are built to wear silk and diamonds, and I was built to be worshiped.

The Master gave me this world to play with, but he won't let me enjoy it, and I fear that too long doing my duty to the Order, and I'll lose my will to. I need something to help me enjoy it. Something strong and pretty and wicked. Something to worship me.

Which means something low. Something I can uplift. I'll bring him to life like the Master brought me to life, but I'll show him how to enjoy it. We'll rule this world. And then we'll rip it down and make our own New World.


	2. Angelus: A New Conceit

**All Together, One After Another**  
by Nyohah

2  
**A New Conceit**

"Each, in its utmost development, supposes a  
high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge;"

* * *

It's a funny thing about convents. They're filled to their vaulted ceilings with so much piety, such endless hours of prayers and devotions and contrition that even when you clean them out, you can still hear the hymns. It's the sort of the thing that would really ruin a good massacre if it wasn't so funny. This place, just one short hour ago, was resounding with _Domine in Excelsis Deo_s. And now, there's just faint echoes, a little residual creepiness. It's laughable, really, which is what makes this so much fun.

Well, one of the things that makes this so much fun.

This time, there's a fractured humming on top of the echoes. And, let me tell you, the screeching just really detracts from the solemn atmosphere. This girl was not one of the choir's strongest members.

She's shaking, too, trembles punctuated by quakes that alter the timbre of her voice. Her humming is less annoying than her sobbing was, but it's giving me a headache, especially now that she seems to be stuck on the same four notes. Frankly, I hope she starts babbling again. Now, that was funny. But this one's not just about the humor.

The hunt, you see, is all about the art, and humans are the canvas. Oftentimes I will settle for a bit of travesty, but I strive for high art as much as any other artist. And this one, if I do say so myself, is high art. Pale skin, innocent tears, tragic expression. Well, and the humming and babbling and running nose. So she's more Millais's _Ophelia_, and less Da Vinci's _Testa Di Faniciulla_. What can I say; I'm a modernist.

She's completely insane, in case you have never seen Hamlet or are just, well, stupid. And I put a lot of work into getting her that way. Originally, I'd planned to just kill her and put on the finishing touches. Now, though, I see she's too good to let go. I think I'd much rather turn her and take her with us. Add a little spice to our lives. A little more spice, that is.

Darla and myself, we don't really need help in having a good time. We've ripped through this country, and more than that, we've ripped through the Continent. I liberated her, the single pearl of the Order of Aurelius, from that Master of hers to let her have the finest things in this world, and she's proven herself insatiable. She gave me this existence; it was only fitting to let her have such freedom, too.

And I'd like to say I'm only spreading the wealth with this one, but, then, that's not true. This one was about the process and not the result, but I have to say, she's turned out quite well.

A name, of course. She'll be needing a new name. Her very religious mother probably gave her some very proper, very prudish name that would never suit except for irony. A good girl's name, for a good girl.

She won't be a good girl anymore after tonight.


	3. Drusilla: Kill Him with Kindness

**All Together, One After Another**  
by Nyohah

3  
**Kill Him with Kindness**

"each renders one individual dependent for the  
foods of his affections and spiritual life upon another;"

* * *

Foul weather makes Miss Edith cross and unseemly. It rains, and it rains, and the streets are full of mud, and still no one cares enough to lie down his coat for her.

Grandmummy hates the rain also and says we should have stayed in the Mediterranean. It was Daddy's plan to come back to England for the summer for the warmth. Grandmummy laughs and says it's never warm.

I had to put Miss Edith in Grandmummy's hatbox so she wouldn't cry and spoil supper. She can still hear the rain on the windowpanes—slap! slap!—but no one ever cares what she hears. And she shouldn't see anything when she's in a hatbox, either. Her mummy wouldn't like it.

Shh! Don't speak ill of the dead. Only Miss Edith is allowed to be glad that her mummy was taken away from her. And only when she's in a hatbox.

The rain is whispering to me, very quietly so Daddy and Grandmummy and Miss Edith don't hear it. It's a secret just for me and for the cobblestones, but when the mud begins to cry, Miss Edith can see it. Her mummy wouldn't like that. Her mummy would like her new acquaintance, but not for Miss Edith. He's too fine a catch for Miss Edith.

She can feel beetles in her stomach, crawling around to try to get at him. She'll have him first, and they'll have him after. And when they're gone, who'll have him then? If Miss Edith knows, she won't tell.

The rain makes her cross.

It didn't rain on us when we were in Italy, but Daddy laughed at me when he saw the paintings. The schoolboys were laughing in their vulgarity, but I ate the one who didn't laugh. He liked beautiful things. Miss Edith isn't allowed to see beautiful things. If you stare at the pretty things for too long, then a monster will come and swallow you up, and then you'll need to find a new dress before they'll let you come to the ball.

There are pretty things here in the rain, dancing. They talk, and they laugh, and when the clock strikes tomorrow, they all die. The one who came back for them is the one who came for me. They looked at him and saw coppered butter. He tastes like sugared oranges.

Daddy was right about coming back for the rain, and Miss Edith can see it. Grandmummy will be pleased. It is her duty. Daddy will be jealous, but he never sees. He should have learned to lay down his coat so I don't dirty my ankles and ruin my dress.


	4. Spike: If All the World Were Paper

**All Together, One After Another**  
by Nyohah

4  
**If All the World Were Paper**

"each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater,  
forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject."

* * *

This is all her fault. This whole bloody great mess, and every last bit of it, her fault.

Her, with her stupid sundresses, and her leather coats, and her shoes. High-heeled. You know, for running in.

It almost makes me sick. Sick to see her prance around the graveyards every night—well, I wish it did, anyway. And isn't that the whole problem to begin with? That it doesn't make me sick?

Wait, scratch that. Problem is, it makes _her_ sick. Thinks she's too good for me, just because she's the Slayer. All high-and-mighty with her stakes and her righteous battles.

And look at her now, blonde hair falling over hoop earrings as big as the shackles on her wrists. Got yourself into a right bit of trouble now, haven't you, love?

Think you're so good when you're chained helpless to the wall, do you? Think you're so much better than me and that if I just fizzled away into nothing someday that no one would care.

Well, guess what? Drusilla came back for me. Things just weren't the same without me—not worthless to her, now, am I? She came back for me, and we were ready to take this town. Dancing in the Bronze and picking out our prey like we had never been apart. Like nothing had changed.

But things have changed. I have changed.

And it's all her fault.

That's right; you think I wanted this to happen? You think I woke up one morning and said, "Kinda bored today. Think I'll fall in love with the bane of my existence." No, that's just my curse, isn't it? Always has been, hasn't it?

And here I am, all different inside because she's wormed her way into every bit of me, and she can't even see her own reflection. Still thinks I'm just an evil, soulless thing who's too pathetic to put down.

And I'm that evil, soulless thing because of Dru. It's a right daft thing to think because if she hadn't made me evil in the first place, I wouldn't even be here to be evil. I wouldn't have ever met the Slayer. But even that would be better, wouldn't it? If Dru hadn't—

Eh, no. It wouldn't any better. But it is her fault. Her fault for leaving me. If she hadn't left me in Brazil, nothing on this earth would have dragged me back to Sunnydale. I'd be with her, and it would be like before, because I wouldn't be any different. I wouldn't have been forced away from her. Wouldn't have woken up one day with the Slayer in my dreams.

Dru's familiar, just like always, and it ought to be just like always, but there's bits of her just don't fit. Darla's got her dressed up in the essence of modernity, and Angel's got her scarred. She'll heal up soon enough, on her own, and clothes can be changed, and I do wish it was just that. There's something on the inside. We jar when we ought to mesh.

It's not her, though, is it? It's me. It's all me. And it's all because of the Slayer.

I'd give anything I've got to go with Drusilla and go to L.A.—God forbid—or wherever it was she fancied.

But I can't. She may have come back for me, but she'll never keep me now. I could never go with her now. She used to be everything, and now she's as much as worthless to me. And it's all because I'm in love with the Slayer.

And it's all her fault.


	5. Buffy: Mourning in Fashion

**All Together, One After Another**  
by Nyohah

5  
**Mourning in Fashion**

"Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem  
essentially the same, except that the one happens to be seen in a  
celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow."  
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The Scarlet Letter_

* * *

So I'm standing in an Express in a mall in Kansas City, Missouri, looking at skirts, and this really hot guy is checking me out.

Kansas City, Missouri. Isn't that sort of oxymoronic? Kind of like black and pink.

And you know what they have in the Express in Kansas City, Missouri? Rows and rows of black and pink.

And a hot guy totally checking me out.

I lift a skirt—black and pink, you guessed it—as cover for my checking him out back, and he is hot, and young—but not too young—and normal-looking, and _living_. And I'm so ashamed of checking him out that I have to pretend to be looking at a skirt when I ought to meet his eyes and give him a flirtatious little smile, and maybe a coy look, so that he progresses from checking me out to trying to pick me up.

But no. I lift up the skirt. It looks like something Madonna would wear. Back when she sang "Like a Virgin."

And what worries me most is that, after quickly glancing at Guy comma Hot long enough to register that he's wearing Tommy, I find myself staring at the skirt with the realization that it perfectly matches my mood. The colors, not the scary eighties lace-and-bow combination.

The pink is for the Hellmouth being gone and the First Evil being dead. The pink is me, Willow, and Xander making quips about shoes and mini-golf while Giles pretends to exasperated by us. The pink is for the world that has once again not ended, and let's party!

The pink is for hot guys checking me out.

And the black is for—everything else. The girls who died when I didn't even know their names. Anya. Xander's eye. All our homes and our jobs and our purpose in life. Because much as we hated the Hellmouth and wanted it gone, what do we do now? Work at the Doublemeat Palace for the rest of our lives? The pleasure cruise will end sometime, hopefully some time before we completely bankrupt Giles.

And I'm standing in the middle, unsure of what I should do. I should be mourning, but I've gotten what I've wanted for so long—a normal life sans Hellmouth—and how do you mourn getting your longest and most desperate wish? But the glee that was so easy to come by as we watched the aftermath and bid our goodbyes to Sunnydale—when it was least appropriate in the wake of so many deaths—that glee has been waning, and so here I stand, distracting myself with an ugly skirt made of black and pink.

The pink is for the hot guy checking me out, and I can't make myself even enjoy it because—

Because the black—the black is for Spike. Because he had to go and ruin everything by saving the world. I can easily convince myself not to miss the guy who used to steal my underwear. Or the guy who tasted his own nosebleed. That's easier done than said. But the guy who saved the world? The guy who stood by me when everyone else abandoned me?

I miss him. The black is for dwelling on our last conversation, if it can even be called a conversation. The pink is for the subject of that conversation. The pink is for my confession—what is the proper color for love if not the pink of construction paper hearts? The black is for his reply, and for not knowing if he was right, or if I was. The only way I will ever know will be to have him standing in front of me so I can see the true him, and not my memories of his last moments as a hero, sunlight streaming out of him. And standing in front of me is exactly where Spike can never be again.

I can not love the evil, annoying vampire who said I have stupid hair. I'm not sure about the man who told me I am insufferable as a prelude to building me up from rock bottom.

So as the hot guy is met by some friends, and they all turn to leave, I stay where I am, holding a skirt I have no interest in.

Frozen.


End file.
